Life with Lions: Wildlife Filmmakers Tell All

Below:

Next story in Science

For more than 30 years, Dereck and Beverly Joubert have
documented the lives of Africa's iconic and endangered big cats,
first in their native South Africa, and now in Botswana, their
home since 1981.

From their home base on a tiny island, in a river around which
lions prowl, the husband-and-wife team live a life worthy of
an edge-of-your-seat adventure novel (with a sizable dash of
romance).

Embedded among some of Africa's fiercest predators, the Jouberts
have survived plane crashes, parasites and an encounter with a
wounded, charging elephant — all for the sake of the animals,
many of them
endangered, they profile in photographs and on film.

All this week, the Jouberts' work, along with other films about
the planet's largest felines, is featured on Nat Geo Wild's
first-ever "Big Cat Week."

OurAmazingPlanet caught up with the Jouberts during one of their
short stateside visits to get an inside look at what fuels the
couple's lifelong dedication to studying Africa's fiercest cats.

OurAmazingPlanet: How did your work with lions and other
big cats begin? Did you initially set out to do this sort of
long-term documentary work?

Beverly: It was a little bit of an evolutionary
process. We started off studying
lions in South Africa. That was over a three-year period, and
it truly opened our eyes, because what we were witnessing hadn't
been documented before.

It was wonderful that we had an understanding of animal behavior;
we managed to blend the creativity and science together.

Very early we realized that to produce a film over a three-month
period was such a small slice of life; we wanted to do a film
over a much longer period. We realized it was important to do
things that way — patiently sitting and watching, not putting
ourselves on camera. It was important to just document what was
happening, so we needed the luxury of time.

OAP: Your lifestyle is, to say the least, a bit unusual.
How in the world did the two of you meet? And end up living in
the middle of nowhere in Botswana making films together?

Dereck: We went to high school together, that's
where we met. But I remember there was a party for Beverly's 21st
year — I looked around the room and there were a lot of other
21-year-old girls there, all with very mediocre ambitions. I
remember saying to Beverly, enjoy the night, but I think that
tomorrow we should leave — we should go out into the bush and
live an extraordinary life. Because the alternatives were scary.

I think, largely, Beverly and I had fallen in love and wanted to
go out and lead a romantic lifestyle, and stumbled into the
science and the conservation and the filming. But very early on
we discovered we needed to be a voice, and a voice for
conservation.

Beverly: I had prepared my parents. I told them,
'Please understand, and do not be offended or hurt, but I'm not
going to lead the same life, in a suburban society.'

OAP: And did you leave the next day?

Dereck: We did actually – that's when we started
our work in South Africa.

It's an interesting life for us. We now live in a tent, on an
island in the Okavango River. That’s what we call home. We don't
have a staff, it's just us. We do everything ourselves; we repair
the tent when snakes and mice dig their way in, we follow lions,
we record our thoughts in Moleskin journals, and all of those
things that could place us in an environment 100 years ago in
many ways.

And yet we've got the most recent HD cameras that are capturing
these images. There's this funny sort of blend of authentic
exploring, modern-day technology, creative thought and romance
all intersecting in one spot in our lives

Beverly: Doesn't this just make you want to come
and join us?

OAP: In a word, yes! You must have had some close shaves
over the years. Was there any time you thought the jig was up and
you were in for it?

Beverly: We have had close shaves with various
animals, as well as some tiny critters, getting drastically ill
from the water, and Dereck getting malaria. Once, an elephant
that had been wounded by poachers charged us and picked up our
vehicle and tossed us around.

But we haven't had any close shaves with the cats, except for one
time when we were on foot, and we were charged by a male lion.
The only thing that saved us is he had to cross over a very long,
dry riverbed; there was an incline he had to climb up, and the
sand gave way. Once he slid down, I think that saved us.

And we've had two plane crashes. We fortunately managed to walk
out of both of them. Both of them were related to the brakes
failing in landing. In one, there were some giraffes in our path,
and we didn't want to hurt them. So to avoid the giraffes, the
plane had to turn at such a fast pace that we overturned the
plane.

OAP: Good heavens.

Dereck: We don't do boring well.

OAP: It sure sounds like it! There's a remarkable episode
between a leopard and a baboon in your doc "Big Cat Odyssey"
that's playing this week. A young female leopard kills an adult
baboon, which is revealed to be carrying a tiny, day-old baby.
What happens next is really incredible — the leopard saves the
baby baboon. Was that a surprise?

Dereck: What she did was something
extraordinary. It went on for about five hours, and we couldn't
step away because it was so fascinating. She picked the baby
baboon up, and saved it from hyenas, carrying it to the upper
branches of a tree. And every time it fell out she'd go and pick
it up again; she was really caring for it.

She was at a crossroads. A predator, born and bred, and still at
the brink of leaving behind the world of being a cub — but also
with this blooming maternal instinct inside her. She didn't kill
that baboon, which was a real surprise to us and to the entire
scientific community. We can't explain that behavior, it just
doesn't make sense. But we literally moved in with this leopard
for four years, so we get exposed to this behavior.

OAP: What is the main goal of your most recent work,
which seems to focus on Africa's lions and leopards?

Dereck: We are trying to draw attention to the
fact that these are cats we should celebrate and have respect
for, hence "Big Cat Week." The thrust of the week is to bring
attention to the fact that, really and truly, big cats around the
world are down by 95 percent.

Beverly: We don't have a lot of time — only a
15-to-20-year window, and I don't believe that we want to be
responsible for turning these animals into the dinosaurs of
tomorrow. These animals are actually keeping vast tracts of land
alive and healthy. And if we can't save the cats, then we really
can't save ourselves either.

See the Jouberts at work in the documentary "Big Cat
Odyssey," featured on Nat Geo Wild this week. In February 2011,
the Jouberts are releasing a book and a feature film on Africa's
lions.